Undergraduate Research

The college provides undergraduate research and other transformational learning opportunities in and out of the classroom. Students in all of our majors have opportunities to engage collaborative scholarship and service learning activities with faculty mentors.

Traditionally, small colleges are recognized as centers for teaching excellence and large universities are recognized as centers for cutting-edge research. Due to our focus on the individual student and our deep commitment to learning and discovery, Bradley is ideally suited to meld the two poles (teaching and research) into an initiative that integrates the best of both academic instructional models.

Examples of current student/faculty projects in the college include:

Students and faculty from the Department of Computer Science and Information Systems developed a geographically-explicit biological inventory database for Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, allowing researchers to compare previously unrelated data sets describing the distributions of different groups of organisms in the topical forest.

Biology students are transforming stem cells to find new treatments for Parkinson's disease. Their research goal is to transdifferentiate non-embrionic stem cells into neurons that will be injected into the brain, replacing lost neurons.

A student/faculty team develop successful grant applications on behalf of the Nazareth Academic Institute, a new multi-faith institution of higher learning, to support the new school’s mission.

Students and faculty in sociology are conducting a nation-wide survey on college student drinking behavior, while students and faculty in psychology investigate the neurophysiological basis of drug and alcohol addiction.

The Body Project brings together students and faculty to examine the social and cultural norms underlying body image in young adults and to promote healthy body image on college campuses.

English department faculty and students generated an economic impact and sustainability study for local human service agencies.

Computer scientists and behavioral learning specialists are teaming up to pioneer the use of robotics as therapeutically or educationally useful tools for treating individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD).